Islamophobic attacks on the rise

With depressing predictability, politicians are using the antisemitic Golders Green arson as an excuse to roll out Islamophobic rhetoric. Never mind the fact that we have no idea who carried out the attack – the knee-jerk bigotry is already in full swing.

Golders Green: Al Jazeera told to ‘go home’

Politicians and the general public alike have pivoted to Islamophobic and anti-Arab rhetoric almost immediately after the attack.

As a case in point, an Al Jazeera news crew had to leave the scene of the Golders Green attack after a crowd started chanting “go home” at them. Reuters footage shows one individual telling an Al Jazeera staffer:

Go take your briefcase, go take your Al Jazeera equipment and go. No one wants Al Jazeera here.

Alarming footage of the incident showed reporters being harassed out of the area:

The crowd later chanted “Al Jazeera off our streets”, “go home”, and “terrorists”.

After a police officer stated that “They’re reporting the news”, an onlooker said:

We feel threatened by Al Jazeera being here. We feel threatened. We don’t feel safe.

The reporting is going to go to potential terrorists. That’s why we don’t want to see that on our streets. For our safety, please remove them from our streets.

Of course, Al Jazeera also provides in-depth coverage of the frontline conflict in Gaza. At one point, the IDF closed Al Jazeera’s offices in Israel, alleging they were being used “to support terrorist activities.” Al Jazeera flatly denied the accusations, calling them:

an affront to press freedom and the very principles of journalism.

A number of journalists from Al Jazeera have been murdered during Israel’s concerted campaign to eliminate journalists reporting on their genocide.

What’s ‘intifada’ got to do with it?

And, in the House of Commons, right-wing politicians took the opportunity to conflate the attack with Islam and support for Palestine.

Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, asked his counterpart Shabana Mahmood whether she believes that:

calls on our streets at marches for Jihad and Intifada are calls for violence, which fuel antisemitism, and does she agree they should no longer be allowed?

Note Philip’s attempt to conflate ‘jihad’ with ‘intifada’, the Arabic word for ‘uprising’. After the Bondi Beach attacks in Australia, Zionists around the world called for bans on the use of ‘intifada’, to varying success. At the time, the Canary wrote:

To decry the terrorist assault on Bondi beach as a manifestation of a globalised intifada is nothing short of a heinous smear.

It is a smear against anti-Zionist protesters across the world who use the phrase ‘globalise the intifada’ as a call to action against Israel’s genocide. That action is non-violent, and often carried out by anti-Zionist Jewish protestors. And yet still, it is conflated with terrorism at every turn.

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Predictably, and despite the complete lack of any evidence, Philp also got in a call for more deportations:

And finally, will she ensure that all antisemites and extremists who are not British citizens get deported?

Because why stop at Islamophobia when you could also chuck in some anti-migrant sentiment?

‘Terror cell embedded in North London’

Following suit, far-right leader Nigel Farage took to social media to whip up fear:

What I want to hear, what the whole country wants to hear, given we now have a terror cell embedded in North London, what I want to hear is that you are proscribing as a terrorist organisation the IRGC.

The IRGC refers to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, part of the Iranian military. Again, note that Farage is doing precisely what counter-terror police have warned against, pinning the attack on Iran.

Likewise, he’s calling for the proscription of the military of a country currently being attacked illegally by his mate Trump. And, notably, the IRCG is not the group that claimed responsibility for the attack in Golders Green.

It’s also worth bearing in mind that Farage only cares about antisemitism when it can be used to attack Islam and the Arab world. He has repeatedly denied claiming that “Hitler was right”, in spite of multiple witnesses coming forwards. Likewise, he later made thousands selling videos to neo-Nazis. 

Now, none of this is to say that HAYI wasn’t responsible for the Golders Green attacks. This claim hasn’t been confirmed; it isn’t something we know one way or the other. Likewise, authorities have also stated that they aren’t yet convinced of the Iranian state’s responsibility or involvement.

However, it’s a depressingly common occurrence that any antisemitic attack in the UK is immediately weaponised by cynical, bigoted politicians. In one breath, they condemn antisemitism and then immediately employ dog-whistle Islamophobic, anti-Arab and anti-migrant rhetoric.

We see them, we know what they’re doing, and we won’t stand for their weaponisation of hatred.

Featured image via the Canary